Alternate seats for 1995 rangers?

[ratdude747]

I will praface this by noting that I have read the tech article on seats.

Question: the 40/60 seats in my 1995 Ranger (regular cab, long bed) are kinda saggy and worn out (foam flaking on to carpet, no tears) and the armrest mount's threads seem to be stripped. On top of that, the arm rest is busted (broken lid, don't ask, I bought it that way). and due to it flopping around like a broken ankle due to the stripped mount, I removed it.

I'd like to replace my seats in the sorta-near future... but I'd also like to keep the ability to legally and safely have two passengers; usually it's my wife and I but once in awhile I need to stuff in a 3rd person. Besides, the ranger seats, are there any other seats I can get (JY or the like) that will allow for this?

I ask because I've had next to no luck regarding seats at the local pull a part. Most of the period rangers are gutted out already (no seats) and the ones that aren't have trashed interiors (shame, I even found a tan one like mine, torn to bits). Explorers and the like seem to be much more plentiful.

Thoughts and/or suggestions?

 

[SenorNoob]

Take a note of the style of recline mechanism. I'm fairly sure that any Ford with the same style recline parts can be bolted to the rails already in your truck... Excepting maybe full size pickups...

 

[PlumCrazy]

Any 83-13 Regular cab seats will bolt in.

In 98 I know the Super Cab buckle was mounted the seat vs the floor, I assume the reg cabs as well, but its no biggy, just unbolt the newer buckle/pretensioner and push your floor mounted buckle into the hole.

 

[ratdude747]

Finally found some seats... I grabbed some (and the matching floormats, which are currently drying in the garage) from a 2000 Ranger at the local Pull-A-Part.

I did have to unbolt the driver/passenger seat buckles from the buckets, and I did have to cut off the plastic sleeve on the existing driver's buckle to allow it and the center belt to route through the new seat's hole. I used a zip tie to retain said buckle by routing the zip tie through the neighboring armrest support.

Seats installed:

Zip tie fix:

The only other issue I ran into is the newer seats were designed for bigger seat bolts; while they mostly lined up OK, the stock bolts for the old seats don't provide a lot of metal to metal contact. I'll be buying some fresh bolts and fender washers to fix this (as I don't see drilling and tapping the floor threads for the larger size going well).

These seats ride about an inch or two higher and have more slide/tilt adjustability. Which is good for my wife, who was having to use a pillow and a backpack previously to drive my truck, now she just has to slide the seat forward.

Also, the armrest lid (like every other ranger with this design) is busted... but all the pieces are there, so I can probably find a way to fix it (I'm thinking sheet metal with the latch striker somehow attached).

 

[ratdude747]

Did some work today... swapped out the mount bolts. Discovered that the rails' bolt holes will need some filing due to a slight mis-match (enough to make the slides bind up a bit, as they slid a lot better with the rear bolts loose/removed).

Also, the weld job I did on the driver's seat frame failed; part of the wire "U" that goes in the upper frame snapped, and my crappy weld popped. Stupid junky 90A flux welder from hell (I miss high school shop when I could have TIG'd it or the like)... so I'm on the lookout for a 1998+ seat with a good upper frame. Sadly, the upper seat frames on my old seats are NOT compatible (different mounts to the tilt mechanism).

 

[zt3v3o64]

I did a quick Google search, and found this. Hope it helps...
http://www.rangerforum.com/threads/seats-that-will-fit-your-ranger.781/